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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Under Pressure...

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Found this article online, and thought it was brilliant.

Enjoy.

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By Noah Lotte

For the
politicians on Capitol Hill, I have yet another issue to bring to the table. I
realize that you are extremely busy debating immigration and soundly arguing
over gun control, however, recent events beg your attention elsewhere. To my
fellow Americans, I recognize that we all struggle to meet our mortgage
payments, much less figure out how much in taxes we actually do owe the
government, but the time has come for us to recognize the newest threat to our
liberties and freedoms.

I have
been deeply saddened the last week, praying for the families of those killed
and maimed by the dual explosions at the Boston Marathon. I dearly hope that this atrocity will never
be forgotten and shall never be repeated. We must do our utmost to prevent such
a bombing from ever occurring in the future. Examining the sequence of events
that brought about the attack, it is clear what course of action we must take.

For the
sake of our liberties and our national security, I believe that legislation
must be passed to ban the use and sale of pressure cookers. It was these
everyday items that were used in the bombings, and had the terrorists been
unable to access the cookers, these attacks could have well been prevented. We must remove these tools of destruction from
our homes and from our society. There will always be groups opposed to such
legislation, but we cannot afford to let our political opinion stand in the way
of safety. At the very least, we must require extensive background checks for anyone
attempting to purchase a pressure cooker. Allowing a pressure cooker to fall
into the wrong hands will only have the same consequences as those in Boston. It
is our added civic duty to ensure that crazy aunt Matilda cannot unrestrictedly
use pressure cookers as well. Recognize
we have just as much a duty to protect that nation as the government.

In
addition to background checks, we must also work to limit the amount of
atmospheres pressure cookers can withstand. Currently, the average pressure
cooker allows the user to build the pressure up to dangerous levels, as
evidenced by the numerous pressure cooker accidents that have occurred in the
last decade. Were we to limit the amount of pressure per cooker, we will reduce
the potential devastation wreaked by accidental and purposeful explosions.

My
fellow countrymen, if I were the president and I knew this legislation would
save one life, I would pass it. If I knew it would save a hundred lives, I
would pass it. But simply knowing the
enormous danger that the unregulated use and purchase of pressure cookers poses
to our society’s safety is enough. We
cannot afford to live in the past where these so-called “useful” items are
freely accessible to anyone—if we are unsafe now, we may never have a future.

Let us all put our signatures to
this legislation and with our pressure protect the nation for our children.